The worldwide subscriber data management (SDM) market grew 29% in 2014 to $1.4 billion, fueled by operator demand for voice over LTE (VoLTE) and subscriber analytics, according to IHS.
“Voice over LTE is continuing to drive SDM spending in developed markets as operators look to manage their subscriber data over multiple network domains,” said Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence at Infonetics Research. “We expect the adoption of voice over Wi-Fi to have a similar effect.”
“However, momentum around big data and analytics has the potential to have an even more significant impact on the SDM market, as operators seek to break down the data silos that exist within their organizations and better leverage subscriber data to improve the customer experience and drive additional revenue,” Levine said.
Infonetics’ report shows that operators are looking to deploy SDM as a centralized subscriber data repository that can be integrated with multiple front-end applications potentially from multiple vendors.
The cost savings and operational efficiencies associated with reducing the number of subscriber data repositories remains a major factor behind SDM spending, particularly in emerging markets facing rapid subscriber growth.
Despite growing interest in SDM, barriers to adoption remain, including interoperability concerns, subscriber data sensitivity and organizational silos.
Virtualization of front-end applications such as home subscriber server (HSS) and policy and charging rules function (PCRF) are well underway, and virtualization of the backend SDM platform is following suit, but concerns about reliability, availability and security persist.
As SDM evolves to an independent backend solution that can enable emerging areas such as identity and analytics, it will create new opportunities for alternative vendors that may not have an entrenched presence in the HSS and home location register (HLR) markets.